Archive for November, 2009

Last Tuesday I took the afternoon off and went back to Cauria to take some pictures of the oak and chestnut trees in full autumn colours. When I left home, the weather conditions were really good: overcast and no wind. However, by the time I reached my destination the clouds started to get thinner and finally a low sun was casting its warm light over the trees. I just kept going and found myself at the head of the trail. There was much less snow than the last time. “Hum! This does not look good” I said to myself, but I started the easy trek nonetheless.

I tried to get some pictures of the larch trees still with some pretty colours on them. But nothing really convincing. While I moved around, I saw a nice patch of snow covered with the larch needles and some other yellow leaves. It looked full of potential so I started playing around with lowering the tripod an trying to find a nice compositions. The result is the picture below.

All that is left - Canon 5D, 24-105L, 105mm@f/16, 8s.

I was mainly attracted by the big leaf at the top with the water beads. Only the bottom of the comp was empty. I decided to add another leaf but by letting it falling in the framing. So, somehow this is not that arranged by me…chaos took part on it as well.

Last Sunday the first real snow hit the Dolomites. Although the weather was not that nice we decided to go out. We hit the trail starting from Cauria to reach Mt. Corvo. From there, a nice view of the north side of the Lagorai is visible, although everything was covered in low clouds. The forest was covered of a nice layer of snow: very nice to see some falls colours still in the middle of the white cover. Below, an example of what it looked like.

The season it is at its peak. The colours are gorgeous and giving my limited time I’m trying to get the best out of it.

Last Thursday, with a colleague of mine, we went to Val di Genova, a very pretty valley in the Adamello National Park. The only problem was timing. We went for capturing the sunset. The valley is crossed by a 10km one-track road that takes you to the bottom of the valley. The only problem was that it is closed and of course we didn’t know. So, what was a 10 minutes ride changed in a 45 min walk. Basically we just got there to catch some of the last light in the peaks.

Below is one picture captured just as the sun was kissing the far peaks. I intentionally kept the green trees dark to enhance the colours of the larches. The details of the rivers are from two different exposures: one full polarised and another with no polarisation to capture the reflection in the water.

Following the Autumn - Canon 5D, 24-105L, 24mm@f/11, blending of three exposure to handle the dynamic range using Tony Kuyper's Luminosity Masks.

Yesterday we got the first real snow and this weekend more snow is forecasted. So I hope that the leaves cling on to the trees for just a couple of more days.